


Nesting Peak

by joonfired



Category: Mortal Engines (2018)
Genre: F/M, Hester knows what she wants, I Will Go Down With This Ship, PLEASE DON'T LET ME BE THE ONLY ONE WRITING FICS ABOUT THIS EPIC MOVIE, Post-Canon, Sleepy Cuddles, Tom Is A Sweetheart, Tom and Hester are precious, but they're exhausted and I wanted to write soft cuddles, mortal engines - Freeform, why aren't there more fics about this movie??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired
Summary: a short ficlet of post-canon Tom/Hester feels





	Nesting Peak

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing of the books, just saw the movie and am upset there aren't more fics about it so here you go. Please ignore my grammar; I wrote this in half an hour. Also still learning the fandom and characters so bear with my learning curve

They drifted in what seemed a timeless realm. Until the sun began to sink, tinting the orange clouds purple, then blue, and finally silvery-gray as the moon replaced its fiery sibling.

Tom checked the engines while Hester sorted their supplies. They’d gone off without any thought to preparation but Windflower’s spirit was with them, for her ship was well-maintained and decently stocked. And they would have drifted through the night, wind and spirit guiding their course but for Tom’s hesitation.

“It’s just . . . we’re flying, but a bit wounded,” he explained to Hester from the pilot seat. She leaned in the door, hip propped against the frame and two cans of food in her hands. “What if something happened in the middle of the night and we weren’t awake to stop it?”

“All right, all right,” she grumbled, but he knew her enough by now to see past the mask to her hidden amusement. “It’s not a  _ bad _ idea. It’s just not a very exciting one.”

“I think we’ve had enough excitement for at least a year,” Tom muttered to himself as he switched back to the controls and looked for a proper landing site.

He found one about half an hour later, a flat outcropping atop a mountain peak. He set the airship down as best he could with their ruined landing gear, and since the automatic anchor release was missing, he had to hop out and set them manually. Hester looked like she wanted to help for the sake of independency, but if Tom was exhausted himself than he knew her to be perhaps a bit more so.

When he got back, hands tucked inside his coat against the whistling gusts of the mountain winds that gently rocked at the ship as if calling it back to the sky, Hester was sitting at the table. The two cans were set in front of her, one cupped in her hands the other waiting for him.

They ate with the monotonous speed of the tired and hungry. Glances were shared instead of words, too heavy to puzzle out right now. But that was fine, since now they had time. They had a ship and all the world to fly it in.

“I’m going to bed now,” Hester announced, standing up and setting her spoon into the can she’d emptied.

“All right then,” Tom replied, looking over his shoulder at the pile of red satin pillows and faded yellow blankets in the back of the ship’s small living quarters. “You take the bed, I’ll take the—”

He stopped when Hester reached out and curled her hand around his shoulder. Her eyes cut at him through the barely-moving, wild locks of her sunset hair. They were much softer than he could have ever dreamed they would have been when he’d first seen her, all iron and revenge and a knife clutched desperately in her hand.

“Oh.”

She frowned at his tone, which made Tom confused. What did she think he meant?

“I’m going to  _ sleep _ ,” she clarified. But then she added thoughtfully after a moment, her gaze slipping down to his mouth, and then briefly lower for a moment before she came back to his eyes. “For tonight.”

“Ah, of course,” Tom stammered, getting to his feet. Her hand slipped down from his shoulder to his wrist, her fingers cold and chapped against the skin it found there. “I—I didn’t assume. Not that. Not”—he frowned at Hester as she led him towards the bed—“tonight?”

“I love you, Tom from London,” Hester told him, stopping just in front of the bed and facing him. Her features were soft but serious, no jokes or doubt in her gaze. “And perhaps tomorrow I would like you to kiss me.”

“But tonight?” he asked, breathless and unable to keep himself from looking at her mouth when she said the word ‘ _ kiss _ ’.

“Tonight I want to hold you,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

They took off their shoes and coats, quickly burrowing under the blankets against the chill of the mountain air. Tom reached for Hester and she nestled against him, tucking her head under his chin and wrapping her arms around his torso.

It was at that moment that Tom from London knew he loved Hester of the Outlands. He knew it when she was tucked against him, her breath warm against his neck and fingers almost tickling his ribs. He knew it in the sound of her heartbeat pulsing against his. He knew it in the thought that he would fling himself into a traction ship’s ravenous maw if it meant she would be safe.

“I like this,” Hester whispered, her words gusting hot against the suddenly hypersensitive skin of his neck.

“Me too,” he whispered back.

In the time between getting in bed and holding her, his exhaustion had begun to press down on Tom. His eyes slipped shut and he held Hester. And as the night blew over the ship, the two slept.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SEND ME IDEAS OR WRITE FICS OF YOUR OWN I NEED CONTENT OKAY tbh this movie is epic and this is from someone who knows nothing of the books but hoo boy I know what I'm gonna start off my 2019 reading year with!!


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